robert christgau

The Met Ball is a black tie extravaganza that takes place the first Monday of every May with the goal of raising money for the Costume Institute. Each year’s theme responds to the department’s exhibition, which this year was “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology”. So, knowing that technology and the future was the theme, what did we see a lot of? Silver ball gowns. Mirrored ball gowns. Kanye wearing alien contacts and ripped jeans, and, most importantly, Zayn Malik’s robo arm. (or as Rea describes it, “Singularity accessories.”) [The New York Times]

Images from the Met show everyone was nominally there to see at last night’s ball. [Racked]

After 23 years on Greene Street, Artists Space will be leaving its current location at 38 Greene Street. The arts organization chose to buy out their lease because of the landlord’s decision for a penthouse renovation. Artists Space will be out of SoHo by end of June, and are looking for a new location they can lease long-term or buy that will accommodate both their exhibitions and its Artists Space Books & Talks program. [New York Times]

In other Manhattan real estate news, the IFC Center has threatened to leave its Greenwich Village home if it doesn’t get the zoning variance it wants for its expansion project. They are planning a 10 million dollar renovation and want the use of a vacant lot behind the theatre. It’s currently zoned residential and some residents would like it to stay that way. [Curbed]

Oh, poor Georg Baselitz! He’s sad because nobody likes him. The press has unfairly taken him to task for being a chauvinist, the art world is going down a fascist path of political correctness and he’s not been recognized for the greatest work he’s done yet, which is in his studio. Zero sympathy from all of us over here at AFC dude. You keep telling the world women don’t paint very well and we’ll keep telling the world you’re an out of touch artist who obviously hasn’t seen enough paintings by women to know what the hell he’s talking about. [artnet News]

The headline for Cristina Ruiz’s take on the art market’s embrace of seemingly forgotten French modernists says it all: “OFAs (old French artists) are the new YBAs”. [The Art Newspaper]

Six artists, including Dustin Yellin and Jen Hitchings, share what they love and loathe about art fairs. Yellin: “they’re like weird proms where you get to run into a bunch of friends.” [Hyperallergic]

Rock critic granddad Robert Christgau weighs in on the Ramones show at the Queens Museum: “given the band’s aesthetic, which was always rigorously formalist, maybe I shouldn’t prize this juvenilia. But it’s so smart, so nutty, so alive, so careless of the world conquest it was set on that it reminds me so poignantly of how much better my world was because the Ramones were in it.” [ARTnews]

Christiane Paul and Nora Khan have won the Thoma Foundation Award. The awards are $40,000 and $20,000 respectively. [ARTnews]

Abortion clinics aren’t just closing in red states. They’re closing in blue states too. According to this report, smaller clinics are for-profit, but the majority of the patients are too poor to afford the costs associated with the procedure. [FiveThirtyEight]

Venezuelan artist Marisol Escobar has died. The sculptor, who appeared in two of Warhol’s films, Kiss and Thirteen Most Beautiful Women, defied movement categorization due to her interest in pre-Columbian folk art. She had her first solo in 1967 at Leo Castelli, and was part of MoMA’s influential “Art of the Assemblage” 1961 show. [artnet News]